One of my closest friends is a colonel in the Army of the Russian Federation. We got to know each other when I was doing research for a book and contacted him.

He's a microbiologist and an expert on WMD.

A massive fan of Vlad Putin and a communist, he and I avoid all talk about geopolitics unless it's something we can both agree on. We both oppose al Qaeda, for example.

Mostly we talk about music, art, his family, and absurdity. He's a brilliant photographer who sends me images to put on my site.

He also tells me anti-Russian jokes, and I tell him anti-American jokes. But we never do it the other way around.

Though I wouldn't tell a woman to not get offended at a possibly sexist joke, I think women have every right to tell other women to not get offended at those jokes.

Lots of people have hair triggers, for whatever reason. Regardless, accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia have become almost meaningless from overuse.

What I get from the ad is that a Metrobus is a POS.

Somebody made a fortune off the city selling shite, again.

Only 8,260 miles between breakdowns?

Really?

That's like Model T level reliability.

Hell, I've driven 8th hand 50's era sedans with 200,000 miles on the odometer farther than that without issue.

I'd expect any decently modern bus to go 30 or 40 thousand miles, at least, between breakdowns.

Someone got robbed.

And, anymore, sexist is like racist; it's the goto card when you can't actually make an argument addressing whatever actual issue (if any) actually exists.

And, anymore, sexist is like racist; it's the goto card when you can't actually make an argument addressing whatever actual issue (if any) actually exists.

Bingo!! And thread win (and it only just got started!).

Plenty worship at the Church of the Perpetually Offended.

According to the US Dept of Transportation, a city bus averages 37,000 miles per year. This means you will have 4.5 breakdowns per year per bus or one every 90 days. I have almost 90,000 miles on my 2006 Ford & I have never had it breakdown. Metro seems to deploy the same measure of success as healthcare.gov.

Metro seems to deploy the same measure of success as healthcare.gov.

Not saying you're wrong, but in Metro's defense, this doesn't seem to outrageous for a city bus line. I was just reading a report (really, I was) about bus reliability in the San Francisco area. Diesel buses there had a mean distance between failures (MDBF) of between two and three thousand miles for engine-related issues. Electric and hybrid buses had an even lower MDBF. Not sure how that translates into actual breakdowns, though. And the comparison between a personal vehicle and a commercial bus isn't terribly apt, as their mission profiles are likely to be very different.

Sometimes I think Feminism, as a movement, is the victim of its own success. The strides towards equality that feminism made between 1960 and 2000 is utterly insane. Women who are smart and work hard can reach the highest levels or any profession, when they were previously imagined to simply not be as smart or as capable as men. Women are now the majority of college students, when they were previously kept out of many institutions. I mean it's crazy how different things are.

But since it's been so successful, there's not nearly as much earnest work to be done in terms of equality. So I feel like its often fighting battles that are already won.

Is there still plenty of stuff to do? Sure. The US is still woefully behind in terms of maternal/paternal leave.

Could there be more media with smart female leads? Absolutely. But at this point, you just need to go make them, not complain about it.

Talk is cheap.

Feminism worked because they had goals and they took action. And while this kind of dialogue may have been significantly important when they were working towards equality, now it kind of just feels like complaining.

The ad is stupid. We have the WoC ( the black woman) spouting not-interesting semi-science info to the Asian woman ( in a daring role reversal, because as we know all Asians are science/math nerds) who responds like "typical" chick.

Do real women ever want to talk about Metrobuses? Not likely.
Some one needs to photoshop the ad so that the response is " Can't we just talk about guys?" and then send the Tumblr feminists into a real tizzy.

"Is there still plenty of stuff to do? Sure. The US is still woefully behind in terms of maternal/paternal leave."

Yes, the European socialists are way ahead this issue, and yet their birthrates continue to fall.
I guess the Feds should have rolled a mandate for generous maternity/paternity leave into Obamacare, in order to hasten the destruction of the private sector of the economy,

Interestingly, that ad gets under my skin, but I don't think it's sexist.

I tend to be an outlier in just about everything. So, among other uncommon traits for people and/or women, I have zero interest in shoes so long as they are functional. No amount of trying will make shoes interesting to me - nor ball sports, Hollywood personae, clothes, makeup, etc.

The ad is irksome because it is yet another reminder that I am atypical compared to the vast majority of people. Not that there aren't people on my wavelength, they are just few and far between, and I really don't enjoy constant reminders because frankly, I already know.

Reminds me of a piece I heard on the radio this morning, on my fave Twin Cities morning show (a model of non-PC). Apparently a pastor in an affluent church in a well-to-do part of Palm Beach put a message up on his outdoor sign reading "Christmas: Easier to spell than Hanukkah." He's taking all kinds of hell.

Thank heavens he has the sense not to have said "easier to spell than Kwanzaa."

Let's be honest, the reason that women's organizations make a fuss over things like this is to promote themselves. It's a form of marketing.

Any ad that requires you to read the fine print in order to figure out what the ad is about and what it's trying to tell (or sell) you is a bad ad.

This is a terrible ad. Is it about shoes? Is it about DC Metro? Is it about women? Only the fine print tells you it's touting DC Metro's transit improvements program.

And even then, it doesn't give you any basis of comparison for a non-expert to know that 8,000+ miles between maintenance is better than average.

I agree that it's a strange ad... when I read it, I wondered if there was some L.A. inside joke that I was missing.

"But since it's been so successful, there's not nearly as much earnest work to be done in terms of equality. So I feel like its often fighting battles that are already won. "

All of the civil rights movements of the 20th century eventually went bad. They've all been reduced to special-pleading lobbying groups. Postmodern feminists have been spectularly successful at it, for reasons that escape me. It's not like their arguments actually have any intellectual validity, and they're annoying as fuck to have to deal with.

The lack of humor on the part of feminists is actually an old joke in the movement. One of the early covers of Ms. Magazine in the 70s had a cartoon with the classic joke -

"How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"

Answer: That's not funny.

The ad is irksome because it is yet another reminder that I am atypical compared to the vast majority of people.

Ads in general piss me off, I find them so dull, and mindnumbingly STUPID, and it pisses me off that they are effective cause that can only mean the people influenced by them are stupid as well. And stupidity just pisses me off

All of the civil rights movements of the 20th century eventually went bad. They've all been reduced to special-pleading lobbying groups. -- Cousin Dave at December 6, 2013 12:17 PM

As someone noted in an earlier post Sharpton, Wright, Steinem (who is now married), MLK III, and other in rights movements have gotten off track.

So many of them no longer want equal rights, and think they deserve special rights.

> I feel like its often fighting battles that
> are already won.

Almost every social-issue battle is like that.

And it's not just that the fighter knows the dangerous opponents have mostly been swept away, though of course they have... Policy is small source of evil in most of the lives of the downtrodden in America. The much fiercer hazard is incompetent people in their family or community, people who ought to be expected to treat them well. Fixing these problems would require more intimacy from the strong and the successful... Not better policies, and probably not more money. More genuine human involvement.

The other problem is that TV and shallow history and the the popular mentality encourage people to think of themselves as Rosa Parks, whether or not they've ever put their butts on the line for anything.

One of the early covers of Ms. Magazine in the 70s had a cartoon with the classic joke -

"How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"

Answer: That's not funny.

Posted by: Melissa at December 6, 2013 1:08 PM
__________________________________

I've heard of that joke, per se. However, how do you know that WAS on the cover of Ms.? After all, one Ms. cover (a Roy Lichtenstein-style cartoon) that definitely existed went as follows:

Man: Do you know the women's movement has no sense of humor?

Woman: No...but if you hum a few bars I'll fake it!

I think I have it somewhere at home. It'll be easy enough to check the date, if you like.

And Nora Ephron once wrote an early 1970s essay (not sure if it was in Ms. or not, but it was a Doonesbury book introduction - it was partly a tribute to the character Joanie Caucus) that included the following:

"I am not one of those who believe that there is nothing to laugh at about the women's movement; in fact, there is plenty to laugh about without in any way putting down the movement, and I become downright irritable when I read lengthy feminist tracts justifying the women's movement's lack of a sense of humor. 'How can we laugh when we're so oppressed?' That kind of thing. It seems to be that the exact opposite is true: how can we NOT laugh when we're so oppressed....."

In the meantime, I wanted to mention a great late-1970s collection of feminist humor - "Pulling Our Own Strings." One editor was Mary Kay Blakely, who wrote an essay about why women need to start a strike on saying 'I'm sorry.' It was very eye-opening, and a one-sentence summary might be: "Learn to substitute the words 'that's a shame' at least four out of five times."

Excerpt:

"At home, when your son moans that he's late for the school dance and you haven't washed his shirt yet, don't say 'I'm sorry.' Remind him that you possess perhaps the only equal-opportunity washing machine in the neighborhood - it works for anybody who pushes the buttons. At work when the chair of the meeting asks for someone to take the minutes and everybody turns to you, the only woman in the room, don't say 'I'm sorry.' Demonstrate your knowledge of biology and remind them that shorthand skills are not genetic in women. The next time your family itemizes the services not rendered, don't say 'I'm sorry.' Suggest that someone else will have to pick up the slack. When the Hare Krishna makes a plea for money at your door, don't say 'I'm sorry.' Mention that a few adjustments in his attire might result in landing a paid position."

(Of course, she's not talking about being perfectly polite here - just about the need not to do more for others than you really should.)

That book includes clever satirical pieces such as excerpts from "Are Children Neglecting Their Mothers?" and, from the late Sheila Ballantyne, a chapter from "Norma Jean the Termite Queen," which, to my mind, was as good as any of Dave Barry's columns. Well, OK, a bit more subtle, but not much. It was about sewing.

wrote an essay about why women need to start a strike on saying 'I'm sorry.'

I was 16? 17 yrs old, I bumped into a girl in the hallway at school and she apologized to me. She was always apologizing to everyone and it pissed me off. I didnt yell at her but I did snap. I told her to stop apologizing to every one, that I had bumped into her and she should expect me to say I was sorry as it was my fault. I basically bullied her in to demanding an apology from me. I steal feel bad about it, what was really bothering me was I acted the same way towards my step mother every time I got in trouble due to one of her "misunderstandings". The girl in the hallway became more assertive, so I suppose I did more good than harm. At least that is my hope

You can read the Sheila Ballantyne piece here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=eyK52OvOMb0C&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=%22needle+and+thread+envy%22&source=bl&ots=UbnnxkHLyu&sig=csMExKbDo1G4TeCKuicO9qkrgL4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hVqmUpDpNozesATX-4GYBw&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22needle%20and%20thread%20envy%22&f=false

Pages 59-61.

And here's "I'm Sorry, You're Sorry" by Blakely:

http://books.google.com/books?id=eyK52OvOMb0C&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=%22i'm+sorry,+you're+sorry%22++blakeley&source=bl&ots=UbnnxkIEAy&sig=4qtSZLhQ6p5qU9xQBLX6dZvK3nw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ylumUtyAJfSksQTfh4CwBw&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22i'm%20sorry%2C%20you're%20sorry%22%20%20blakeley&f=false

You may have to click on the title when you see it. (I don't care much for the unrelated cartoon that just happens to be above the essay - it's embarrassing for more than one reason.)

And the Ms. cover I mentioned is from November of 1973. Ellen Levine and Norma Klein's writings are featured.